Lebanon Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye has donated to the Los Angeles based organization School on Wheels, which will support more than 1,000 students experiencing homelessness from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The artist has donated several million dollars to charitable organizations in recent years, including humanitarian efforts in Gaza, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Covid relief and more. According to the announcement, the mission of School on Wheels is to enhance educational opportunities for children who are the most disadvantaged in the city.

One of the stars on the breakout Israeli thriller Fauda has been seriously injured while fighting in Gaza as a member of the Israel Defense Forces, according to multiple Israeli media reports.

Salma Hayek as a Mexican-American actress, producer, and director who has won several awards throughout her career. However, not much is known about her parents - Sami Hayek Dominguez and Diana Jiménez Medina - who significantly shaped her personality and career. In this article, we’ll delve deep into the story of Salma Hayek’s parents and shed light on their background, achievements, and their impact on Salma’s life.Salma Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor South Korean director Hong Sang-soo was awarded the El Gouna Gold Star for best narrative film for his meditation on art and relationships, “In Our Day,” as the delayed edition of the El Gouna Film Festival held its closing ceremony on Thursday. The Italian animated film “A Greyhound of a Girl,” directed by Enzo D’Alò, and the Brazilian director Guto Parente’s “A Strange Path” picked up the Silver and Bronze Stars respectively.

Dennis Harvey Film Critic Palestinian refugees have been arriving in the slum district of Sabra and Shalila on the outskirts of Beirut since what Israel calls the War of Independence in 1948. Forty-four years later, their presence (and that of suspected PLO fighters) got targeted in a mid-September massacre by the Christian militia known as Lebanese Forces, executed while Israeli Defense Forces who’d already invaded the nation three months prior stood by. Another four decades have passed since, during which span the area has remained not just a last-resort magnet for multinational refugees, but “the most lawless, poorest, dirtiest place” in the city.

A seven-week investigation by Reuters news agency into the death of staff member Issam Abdallah on Lebanon’s southern border with Israel on October 13 has concluded he was killed by Israeli tank fire.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor MAD Celebrity — the talent management subsidiary of the pan-Arab film and TV company MAD Solutions — has signed Tunisian actor and writer Majd Mastoura, French Lebanese actor Isabelle Zighondi, and Saudi actor, producer and director Amawri Ezayah to the roster of its MAD Rising Celebrity unit, and visual artist, producer and DOP Mostafa El Kashef, who will be joining MAD Crew Celebrity. Mastoura is best known for his work on Mohamed Ben Attia’s “Hedi” — for which he received a Silver Bear for best actor from the Berlin Film Festival, making him the first-ever Arab actor to receive the award — and Léonor Serraille’s “Mother and Son,” which world premiered in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Succession” star Hiam Abbass will play a role that is the polar opposite of Marcia Roy in French-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid’s age-gap drama “Love Conquers All.” The Palestinian actor — who in the HBO series played the third and final wife of billionaire Logan Roy — will next star as Susan, a 65-year-old impoverished widow living in Beirut. There, she meets Osman, a young Sudanese immigrant worker without papers. They instantly fall in love.

EXCLUSIVE: Production is underway on Blackwater Pictures and Silver Milk Production’s feature film, Heavyweight, on location in London. Written and directed by Christopher M. Anthony, the film stars Nicholas Pinnock (Top Boy, Marcella and For Life) & Jordan Bolger (Peaky Blinders, The Woman King) lead the cast. Additional cast includes Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter series, Death of Stalin), Rob Malone (Vikings), Barry Aird (Fortitude, Top Boy), Joplin Sibtain (Andor) Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica, Marcella), Nabil Elouahabi (Top Boy, The Night Of), Blake Harrison (The Inbetweeners, World on Fire), Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil, The Meg 2) and Osy Ikhile (Black Mirror).

Sheynnis Alondra Palacios Cornejo became Miss Universe 2023, Miss Spain Athenea Paulinha Pérez was named Miss Congeniality. This award goes to the friendliest contestant and is the only honor determined by a contestant vote.Miss Philippines Michelle Dee, one of the top 10 finalists, won the award for Voice for Change alongside Miss Angola Ana Coimbra and Miss Puerto Rico Karla Guilfú.

Martin Dale Contributor The sight of dogs ravaging war-torn streets has become an all too familiar sight. Sandra Tabet’s debut feature film “Rabies” (Rage) – a development project at the Atlas Workshops – returns to early 1990s in Beirut, in the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), when rabies began to spread rapidly amongst ravenous dogs, leading to some parts of the city being overrun. Combining horror genre codes with a real-world setting, “Rabies” follows 60-year-old history teacher Julia, who tries to find a cure for her 30-year-old son Ghassan, who after being bitten by a rabid dog slowly transforms into a violent monster.

Disney+ Star Wars series architect Dave Filoni has been named Chief Creative Officer of Lucasfilm.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Maryam Touzani‘s “The Blue Caftan,” a drama revolving around the love between a closeted man and his wife, has sold more than 500,000 tickets around the world. The Arabic-language movie, which world premiered at Cannes in 2022 and won the Fipresci prize, has become the Moroccan film that sold the most admissions overseas in recent history, according to French promotion org Unifrance. Produced by veteran Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (“Casablanca Beats,” “Much Loved”), “The Blue Caftan” stars Lubna Azabal (“Incendies”) and Saleh Bakri (“Costa Brava, Lebanon”).

Christopher Vourlias The forbidden love between two soldiers in a society riven by war is at the heart of “So the Lovers Could Come Out Again,” the sophomore feature from Lebanese filmmaker George Peter Barbari, whose debut, “Death of a Virgin, and the Sin of Not Living,” premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand. Barbari will be presenting the project at the Crossroads Co-Production Forum, which takes place Nov.

The Marrakech International Film Festival has unveiled the 25 projects selected for the sixth edition of its industry-focused Atlas Workshops, aimed at nurturing emerging Moroccan, Arab and African talent.

Kino Lorber has launched a new subscription streaming outlet, Kino Film Collection.

wanted to be Barbie, producers said, which originally gave them pause, since that’s not a Disney character.“We searched through ‘Toy Story’ and found that there was Barbie in Disney, and there was Tour Guide Barbie!” producer Jamie Hammer told People. “So it ended up working out. And Whoopi looked amazing.

Israeli warplanes have struck targets across Gaza after another small aid shipment was allowed into the besieged Hamas-ruled territory.

Reuters videographer Issam Abdullah was killed and four other reporters were wounded in southern Lebanon on Friday while covering skirmishes along its border with Israel.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Lester Holt joined NBC News’ efforts to cover terrorist attacks in Israel by flying first to London, then Amman. The journey took hours, and it’s unclear when it all will truly end. “I think this will be a long TV deployment,” says the “NBC Nightly News” anchor of coverage of terrorists’ moves against the country.

Israel is braced to invade Gaza as war in the Middle East is set to erupt.

Salman Rushdie hinted in February that he was working on a memoir about the stabbing attack last year that nearly killed him and left him blind in one eye. Now, the Booker Prize winner has announced that book will be called Knife and will be published by Penguin Random House on April 16, 2024.

What the f**k… Former porn star Mia Khalifa i

The Cannes Film Festival has admitted six filmmakers, five women and one man, to its 2024 residency program. 

Stephen Gerard Kelly and Garry Keane’s documentary In The Shadow of Beirut has been submitted as Ireland‘s entry for the 2024 Oscar International Feature Film race.

The San Sebastian Film Festival awarded O Corno (The Rye Horn) with the Golden Shell for Best Film. San Sebastián native Jaione Camborda took the top prize of the night for the feature she directed.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Bosnian director and screenwriter Danis Tanović, whose “No Man’s Land” won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, has been selected as the president of the Official Competition Jury at the 45th edition of the Cairo Film Festival. As well as the Oscar, “No Man’s Land” won best screenplay at Cannes in 2001.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Charades has closed multiple deals on “There’s Something in the Barn,” Magnus Martens’s (“Fear the Walking Dead”) comedy horror movie from “Dead Snow” producers at 74 Entertainment and XYZ Films. The English-language movie is headlined by Martin Starr (“Freaks and Geeks,” “Spider Man”), Amrita Acharia (“Game of Thrones”) and Jeppe Beck Laursen (“The Last Kingdom”).

BreAnna Bell Salma Hayek Pinault will be honored with this year’s Giving Tree Award at the 2023 Baby2Baby Gala taking place on November 11 in Los Angeles. The Giving Tree Award is awarded annually to a public figure who has demonstrated exceptional commitment to improving the lives of children in need around the world. Past honorees include Amy Adams, Jessica Alba, Drew Barrymore, Vanessa Bryant, Jennifer Garner, Kate Hudson, Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chrissy Teigen, and Kerry Washington.